Electronic mail delay adaptation

ABSTRACT

A electronic communication system that can detect and adapt to delays in delivery of e-mail messages. The system may adapt to delays by using other mechanisms to convey the information intended for delivery by e-mail. The mechanism may convey the information to the recipient once the delayed electronic mail message is received by the recipient&#39;s e-mail system. In this respect, the recipient may make arrangements to receive information in the e-mail message when the recipient expects to be away from his or her e-mail system. Additionally or alternatively, the recipient may choose to initiate out-of-band communication to the sender when the recipient receives an indication of a delayed electronic mail message.

BACKGROUND

Electronic mail (e-mail) provides fast, sometimes apparentlyinstantaneous, communication of many types of information. For thisreason, e-mail has become widely used for both business and personalcommunications.

Unfortunately, e-mails can sometimes become lost or delayed. An e-mailmessage could be delayed or lost for any of a number of reasons,including overload, failure (e.g., disk crash), or upgrade of a serveralong the end-to-end, store-and-forward path from the sender to therecipient. Overload or failure is sometimes triggered by a burst in thevolume of e-mail messages because of spam or the spread of a virus.Furthermore, the widespread use of spam filters also contributes toe-mail delivery problems such as by sometimes quarantining legitimatee-mail messages, delaying the e-mail until the intended recipientrecognizes that the e-mail was in-fact received.

The most widely used e-mail protocol, the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol(SMTP), includes provisions for an e-mail server to automaticallygenerate delivery delay messages when it has held an e-mail in a queuefor an extended period. While such messages can improve the experiencefor a user, they may not be effective in all cases. For example, somecorporations do not allow any such messages to be generated to protectthe privacy of the corporation (e.g., it prevents an entity fromverifying if an e-mail address is valid) or prevents such messages frombeing generated or received in at least some cases, such as when thee-mail is regarded as spam. Further, such messages cannot be generatedfor e-mails that experience delivery problems before reaching an e-mailserver.

SUMMARY

An e-mail user experience may be improved with a system that recognizeseither actual or potential e-mail delivery delays and allows an e-mailuser to adapt to the delay. A possible adaptation is communication ofinformation in the delayed e-mail to the recipient using a mechanismdifferent than the electronic mail system (i.e., an “out-of-bandcommunication”). The out-band-communication may convey the informationto the recipient once the delayed electronic mail message is received bythe recipient's e-mail system. In this respect, the recipient may makearrangements to receive information in the e-mail message when therecipient expects to be away from his or her e-mail system. Additionallyor alternatively, the recipient may choose to initiate out-of-bandcommunication to the sender when the recipient receives an indication ofa delayed electronic mail message.

An actual delay may be detected using a low-latency channel to sendnotifications of e-mails to recipients. The notifications are likely tobe received in advance of a delayed e-mail, allowing an intended e-mailrecipient to detect that delivery of an e-mail has been delayed. Therecipient may adapt to the delay in delivery, when a notification isreceived without a corresponding electronic mail message. Alternativelyor additionally, the recipient may use a forwarding agent to deliver theinformation of the electronic mail message out-of-band to the recipientat an alternate destination.

The foregoing is a non-limiting summary of the invention, which isdefined by the attached claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings are not intended to be drawn to scale. In thedrawings, each identical or nearly identical component that isillustrated in various figures is represented by a like numeral. Forpurposes of clarity, not every component may be labeled in everydrawing. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of an electronic mail network thatutilizes delay notification, according to one embodiment;

FIGS. 2 a-2 c are a schematic representations of electronic mailnetworks that provide an option for out-of-band communication inresponse to a delay notification, according to some embodiments;

FIG. 3 is a representation of a data structure for storing aggregatedelay information, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a flow chart of an electronic mail message sending processthat includes identifying a potential delay and notifying the sender ofthe potential delay, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of an electronic mail receiving process thatincludes providing an option for out-of-band communication in responseto detection of a delay;

FIG. 6 is a schematic representation of an electronic mail network thatutilizes delay notification such that a recipient may designate anout-of-band communication on which information of an electronic mailmessage may be forwarded, when received, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 7 is a flow chart of an electronic mail receiving process thatincludes providing an option for out-of-band communication in responseto detection of a delay, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 8 is a schematic representation of an electronic mail network thatprovides an option for reprioritization of an electronic mail message inresponse to a delay notification, according to some embodiments;

FIG. 9 is a flow chart of an electronic mail receiving process thatincludes an option for reprioritizing an electronic mail message inresponse to detection of a delay; and

FIG. 10 is a representation of a data structure for a notification thatmay be sent over a low-latency channel.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The inventors have appreciated that existing e-mail systems do notprovide sufficiently useful information about e-mail delays or potentialdelays to allow adaptations that are suitable in all circumstances. As aresult, the inventors have appreciated that alternative mechanisms todetect and to adapt to e-mail delivery delays may significantly improvean e-mail user experience.

Delivery delays may be detected in any suitable way. The delays may bedetected for a specific e-mail message based on actual transmissionconditions for that e-mail message. In other embodiments, potentialdelays may be identified based on historical delay information collectedfor previously transmitted e-mail messages or other information thatindicates the “health” of an e-mail system from which delivery delaysmay be predicted. Some examples of other ways in which delay informationmay be gathered include identifying present and/or past e-mail queuelengths on various e-mail servers throughout a system, and/orautomatically sending periodic e-mail “heartbeats.” When such heartbeatsdo not arrive at a recipient in an expected time, delays may be presumedto be happening.

In a system described herein, delays for a specific e-mail message maybe detected using a low-latency e-mail notification channel, operated inparallel with a channel used for delivery of e-mail messages. Such achannel may convey a notification of an e-mail message sent to anintended recipient and allow the intended recipient to identify, even inadvance of receipt of the e-mail message, that the e-mail message wasdelayed in delivery. Though, any suitable mechanism for detectingdelivery delays may be used.

In embodiments in which a notification channel is used, the ultimaterecipient, or any other person or device at any point along acommunication path that has access to both the notification channel andthe e-mail message channel, may detect the delay. As used herein, anyperson or device that receives a message, even if it forwards themessage to another user or device, may be regarded as a “recipient.”Thus, in some embodiments, a recipient will detect the delay and willtherefore initiate adaptation to the delay.

A recipient may adapt to a delay by initiating communication with thesender to receive through an out-of-band communication, informationintended to be communicated in an e-mail message. In the embodimentsdescribed herein, a party initiating an e-mail transmission may bereferred to as the sender. However, any user or device that has accessto the sent information also may be regarded as a “sender.” For example,a sending e-mail server may be regarded as a “sender” in someembodiments and any such sender may transmit information in anout-of-band communication.

Any suitable out-of-band communications may be employed to adapt to adelivery delay. In some embodiments, the out-of-band communications maybe an instant message or may be a form of peer-to-peer communication,including a VOIP representation of the message. Though, out-of-bandcommunication is not limited to electronic communications. It mayinvolve a telephone conversation or other verbal communication betweenthe sender and the recipient. Alternatively, the out-of-bandcommunication may be in any other suitable format.

Further, the invention is not limited to adaptations that involve usingan alternative mechanism to transmit information intended to bedelivered by e-mail. Any suitable adaptation may be used, includingrescheduling a meeting or reacting in other ways that do not involvecommunication of the information intended for delivery through an e-mailmessage.

Also, embodiments of the invention may predict potential delivery delaysand adapt to the delays before they occur, such as at the time a usercomposes an e-mail message. In an exemplary embodiment, the low-latencynotification channel is used to detect delays in e-mail messages as theyare sent. Delay information is aggregated and used to detect pathscarrying e-mails that are experiencing delivery delays. Though, anysuitable mechanism may be used to identify a path over which e-mailmessages are likely to be delayed. For example, delivery delays may bedetected by collecting e-mail transmission times and delivery times atan e-mail server as e-mails are received for distribution to recipients.Accordingly, the invention is not necessarily limited to any specificmechanism for detecting delivery delays.

Regardless of how paths over which e-mail messages are likely to bedelayed are identified, as subsequent e-mail messages are composed,those that are to be sent over such a path can be identified and anadaptation can be made. In these embodiments, the sender may initiatethe adaptation. As with recipient initiated adaptation, the adaptationmay be in any suitable form, including out-of-band communication of theinformation intended to be delivered by e-mail or other reaction to thedelay.

According to one embodiment, as represented in FIG. 1, a system 100 isconfigured to identify delays associated with the delivery of anelectronic mail message 102. As shown, the system 100 includes anelectronic mail channel or path 104 over which electronic mail messagesmay be sent between a sender 106 and a recipient 108. The channel 104includes one or more electronic mail servers 105 a, 105 b, as aretypically used to convey electronic mail messages 102. The network 100also includes a low-latency notification channel 110, over whichnotifications 112 that correspond to each electronic mail message 102may be sent.

The notifications 112 that correspond to each electronic mail message102 contain a small amount of information, and in this respect, are lesslikely to experience delay in transmission from a sender 106 to arecipient 108. This decreased likelihood of delay facilitatesidentifying delays of the corresponding electronic mail message 102,which typically includes the information 103 of interest. Notification112 may contain any suitable information to identify an e-mail messagewith which the notification is associated. That information may identifythe sender of the e-mail, such as by e-mail address. Though,notification 112 may contain other types of information that may allow arecipient of the notification 112 to contact the sender, includinginformation for an alternative communication channel over which thesender may be contacted and address information for that channel. Also,notification 112 may include presence information for the sender, suchas whether the sender is currently in the office, so that a recipientmay identify where to contact the sender. Other information innotification 112 may allow the recipient to determine whether therecipient wants to contact the sender. Such information may include amessage priority or subject line key words from the message or body.However, the specific information in a notification is not critical tothe invention.

Notification channel 110, in the example of FIG. 1, is shown to passthrough separate servers than those used to convey e-mail messages. Anysuitable networked device providing low-latency communication may beused, which may include a separate message path on one or more serversused to convey e-mail messages. Notifications 112 may be used in variousways to identify delays in the delivery of an electronic mail message102. For example, a recipient may match notifications to e-mailsreceived. Notifications that cannot be matched after some interval oftime may be deemed to be delayed. The interval of time may be apredetermined interval, though any suitable criteria may be used toidentify a delayed message.

According to the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1, the recipient 108 maycollect delay information 116 and convey this information back to aserver, such as the notification server 114. The notification server114, in turn, may aggregate the delay information to determine theexistence of any delays among various paths 104 of a system. Delayinformation 116 may then be shared with a server of the sender 106. Inthis respect, the sender 106 may be alerted to the potential of a delayon path 104 either prior to or shortly after sending an e-mail messageto the recipient 108.

According to another embodiment, a server of the recipient 108 maymonitor incoming messages to determine whether a delay is present. Insuch embodiments, the delay may be identified without a notificationbeing sent over a low-latency channel.

FIGS. 2 a-2 c illustrate various manners in which the system may adaptto a delay. For example, the system may alert either a sender 106 or areceiver 108 about a delay, such that, in response, information of themessage 102 may be communicated using an alternate mechanism.

In the embodiment of FIG. 2 a, the recipient 108, identifies a delayupon receiving a notification 112 without also receiving thecorresponding electronic mail message within a threshold time. Therecipient 108 may then decide to initiate an out-of-band communication.According to some embodiments, the notification 112 may include enoughinformation to alert the recipient 108 as to how to affect apeer-to-peer communication 118 with the sender 106, such as by providingan IP address for the sender 106.

According to another embodiment, as shown in FIG. 2 b, the notification112 may include information that allows the recipient to initiate an IMcommunication 120 with the sender, such as by providing an IM address.The IM address provided may include the sender's normal IM address, oran ephemeral IM address such that the likelihood of broadcastinginformation about the recipient may be minimized.

The threshold time between receipt of a notification 112 and anelectronic mail message 102 that is used by various embodiments todetermine whether a message is delayed may vary widely. According tosome embodiments, the threshold time may be of a minute or less, ofabout an hour or less, of about 12 hours or less, or any other value, asaspects of the invention are not limited in this regard. According tosome embodiments, the threshold value may be variable, and in thesecases, the value may be defined by a particular user or administrator.

According to some embodiments, the recipient 108, upon identifying adelayed electronic mail message 102, may choose to communicate with thesender 106 through the notification channel 110. This may beaccomplished with a return notification 126, as shown in FIG. 2 c. Thesender 106, upon being notified of the delay by the return notification126, may then communicate the information of the electronic mail messageout-of-band to the recipient 108. The return notification may includeinformation instructing the sender on how to contact the recipient, orthe sender may use existing knowledge about the recipient to initiate anout-of-band communication.

According to the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 2 c, the server 105 b ofthe sender 106 may, upon receiving a return notification, automaticallyconvert information 113 of the electronic mail message to speech, via atext-to-speech converter 122. The information may then be relayed,out-of-band, to a voice mail system 124 of the recipient 108, orforwarded in any other suitable way. By way of example, according to oneembodiment of a voicemail system, the text of an electronic mail messageis converted to speech which is then vocalized directly to the intendedrecipient over a telephone line, either to a person or a machine.

FIG. 3 shows one embodiment of a structure 128 that may be used in theaggregation of delay information 116, as discussed herein. The datastructure may be stored in computer-readable media 300 associated withany device that may aggregate historical delay information. For example,in the embodiment of FIG. 1, delay information may be sent tonotification server 114 and the data structure of FIG. 3 may beassociated with server 114. However, the specific location or locationsat which the data structure of FIG. 3 is stored is not a limitation onthe invention.

The information in the data structure of FIG. 3 may convey delayinformation about multiple paths. In the embodiment illustrated, eachpath is defined by a sending domain and a receiving domain. However, apath may be defined in any suitable way and the data structure of FIG. 3may be configured to store any suitable type of data to define a path.For example, a path may be defined by a specific sending and/orreceiving server or one or more other servers, gateways or other devicesused to communicate e-mail messages.

As shown in the example, data may be organized to include a column thatreflects the sending domain 130 for a delayed electronic mail message102, and a column to reflect a receiving domain 132 for the delayedmessage. In this respect, each row 138 of data in the data structure 128represents a path 104 between a sender and a recipient and some part ofthe information in a row defines the path.

Other information in a row may indicate a historical delay for the path.In the embodiment illustrated, a message count 134 reflects the totalamount of messages that have been communicated along each pathwaybetween sending a receiving pairs. Additionally, the total amount ofdelayed messages 136 may be reflected in a separate column of the datastructure 128. This information allows a computation of a rate ofdelayed messages during a first interval of time, which may be usedpredict a delay for subsequent messages sent over the path. Though,different or additional data may be stored to reflect different oradditional characteristics of historical delay. For example, informationabout the length of delay in a path may also be stored. In someembodiments, the historical delay information may contain counts ofnumbers of messages that have delays of differing lengths, allowing ahistogram of delay durations to be created. Accordingly, the specificformat of the data used to indicate historical delay is not critical tothe invention.

A data structure as depicted in FIG. 3 may be used in a process in whichhistorical delay information is used to predict delay for a subsequente-mail message. If a delay, or a delay exceeding a threshold ispredicted, the sender may be notified of the delay so that the sendermay adapt to the delay.

One embodiment of a process by which a sender is alerted of a potentialdelay is represented by the flowchart of FIG. 4. As shown, during subprocess 140, which may occur at a first time period, one or moreelectronic mail messages are sent 142. Notifications that correspond toeach to each of the electronic mail messages are also sent 144 via alow-latency channel, like the notification channel discussed herein. Arecipient 108 computes any delay 146 associated with the delivery of theelectronic mail message, such as by periodically measuring the timebetween receipt of the notification and the current time. Adetermination 148 is made as to whether the computed delay exceeds athreshold value before the electronic message is received. When thethreshold is exceeded, delay information is sent 150. The delayinformation may be used to update aggregate delay information 152.

The subprocess may be repeated for each of a plurality of e-mails sentover any number of paths, creating aggregate delay information formultiple paths. A sender may use the aggregate delay information duringa second time period 154 to determine whether a potential delay existsin the electronic mail system. In particular, the sender may determinewhether a delay exists on a path, or some portion of that path, that thesender intends to utilize. In the example of FIG. 3, a path isrepresented by a sender and a recipient domain. A delay, for example,may be predicted when historical information indicates a delay formessages between the same sender and recipient domains. Though, in someembodiments, a delay over even a portion of that path may be used topredict a delay for a subsequent e-mail message. For example, historicaldelay information indicating a delay in one or more paths that includethe recipient domain may be used to predict a delay.

The subprocess during time 154 may begin when the sender composes anelectronic mail message 156, at which time, aggregate delay informationis queried to check the sender-to-receiver path for historical delays158. A determination may then be made as to whether the extent ofhistorical delays exceeds a threshold value 160, and the sender may benotified 162 when the threshold is exceeded. The threshold value mayvary according to embodiment, but in some instances may be about ½ hour,about 1 hour, about 6 hours, and any other duration of time, as aspectsof the invention are not limited in this respect. When the threshold isnot exceeded, the electronic mail message may be sent 168 withoutnotifying the sender.

As part of the notification 162, the sender of the e-mail may beprompted for input regarding whether the sender wishes to take one ormore actions in response to a predicted delay. One such action may beinitiation of out-of-band communication with the intended recipient. Ifso, the process may branch from decision block 164 to block 166 wherethe sender, or any suitable device, may initiate an out-of-bandcommunication 166, such out-of-band communication in addition tonotifying the sender of a potential delay and/or sending the electronicmail message 168.

FIG. 5 shows one illustrative embodiment of a process for providing anout-of-band communication option to an intended recipient in response todetecting a delay. The process begins by sending an electronic mailmessage 200 and a notification. As in other embodiments, thenotification may be sent in a low-latency channel 202 separately fromthe electronic mail message 200. The delay associated with theelectronic mail message begins to be computed 204 when the notificationis received. When that delay exceeds a delay threshold 206, delayinformation may be communicated to the recipient 208, 210.

In the embodiment illustrated, a single message communicating delayinformation is sent once the computed delay exceeds a threshold. Inembodiments in which the delay is identified before the e-mail messageis received but the communicated delay information indicates themagnitude of the delay, updates to the delay information may be sent asmore time passes and the e-mail message is not received.

Regardless of the number and format of the delay information messages,upon detecting a delay, the recipient can also determine whether toadapt 212 to a mode of communication other than the electronic mailsystem. When the recipient chooses to adapt the mode of communication,the sender is contacted 214 and alternative connection information maybe exchanged 216. Alternately, users of the electronic mail system mayexchange contact information when the notification system is set up. Insuch embodiments, the notification may include information thatidentifies at which of a number or previously identified locations thesender is located. According to some embodiments, exchangingcommunication information may include exchanging an IP address to allowa peer-to-peer communication 220 to be established. As shown, therecipient may be prompted 218, to determine whether peer-to-peercommunication is preferred. Additionally, the recipient may be prompted222 to determine whether an IM communication 224 with an IM address 22,or prompted 226 to determine whether a voice communication 226 thatutilizes a text to speech conversion 228 may be preferred.

The ability to detect delayed delivery of e-mails may be used to improvethe user experience for senders and/or intended recipients of e-mailmessages. According to one embodiment, as shown in FIG. 6, a system 100includes a pathway 104 over which information 103, in the form of anelectronic mail message 102 is sent from a sender 106 to a recipient108. The system also includes a low-latency notification channel 110over which notifications 112 that correspond to each electronic mailmessage may be sent. As with other embodiments discussed herein, thenotification 112 includes a small amount of information, relative to thetypical electronic mail message 102, which allows the notification 102to be transmitted within much lower likelihood of being delayed.

The receipt of a notification 112 without the corresponding electronicmail message 102 may provide an indication of a delayed electronic mailmessage to the recipient. This indication may be presented to therecipient once the notification 112 is received and a threshold amountof time passes without the corresponding electronic mail message 102also being received. However, the specific mechanism by which delayinformation is provided to an intended recipient is not critical to theinvention and any suitable mechanism may be used. For example, theindication may be provided by the recipient viewing a queue wherenotifications 112 that have been received without their correspondingelectronic mail messages 102 are listed.

The recipient may initiate communication via an alternate mechanism inresponse to the indication of a delayed electronic mail message 102.According to some embodiments, the recipient may use a forwarding agent302 to automatically transfer information of the electronic mail messageto a specified destination once the electronic mail message isavailable. In the embodiment illustrated, forwarding agent 302 may be asoftware component executing as part of a e-mail client on a recipient'scomputer. In such an embodiment the information may be transferred whenthe e-mail reaches the recipient's computer. A recipient may beparticularly interested in taking such action when they receiveindication of a delayed electronic mail message 102 and expect to beaway from their computer in the near future.

A forwarding agent 302 may allow the recipient to deliver theinformation 103 of the electronic mail message 102 by variousmechanisms. According to some embodiments, information 103 is passedthrough a text to speech converter, such that the converted information103′ can be conveyed to the recipient 108′ at a location remote from therecipient's computer configured to receive the e-mail the informationmay be conveyed in any suitable way, such as in a voice mail system orto a cellular telephone of the recipient 108′. The information may betransferred out-of-band by other mechanisms as well. According to oneembodiment, the electronic mail message, once received, is sent toanother e-mail address that has been designated by the recipient. Still,other mechanisms, like Instant Messaging addresses are possible, asaspects of the invention are not limited in this respect.

According to some embodiments, in response to receiving a delaynotification the recipient may contact the sender, out-of-band, prior tothe electronic mail message being received. To this end, thenotification 112 may include data that identifies the sender 106, atleast to the recipient 108. The recipient may use this information alongwith prior knowledge on how to contact the sender 106 to initiateout-of-band communication. Though, in some embodiments the notificationmay include sender's contact information. According to some embodiments,the notification may include information that alerts the recipient as towhich of several locations the electronic mail message was sent, such asa home computer and an office computer of the sender 106.

FIG. 7 shows one illustrative embodiment of a process for providing anout-of-band communication in response to a recipient receiving anindication of an electronic mail message 102. The process begins by thesender sending an electronic mail message 301 and a correspondingnotification 304 via a low-latency channel. The delayed electronic mailmessage is identified 306 by the recipient, typically when thenotification is received without the electronic mail message also beingreceived after some specified duration of time. The recipient thendecides 308 whether to designate an out-of-band communication, such asvia a forwarding agent 302 through which the information 103 of theelectronic mail message 102 is to be conveyed.

The recipient 108 next determines which type of out-of-bandcommunication to utilize, and the destination 108′ to which theinformation 103′ will be sent. As shown in FIG. 7, voice mail 310 is oneoption that may be available to the recipient 108 via a forwarding agent302. Here, the information 103 of the electronic mail message may passthrough a text-to-speech 312 converter prior to being transferred to therecipient 108′ at a designated voice mail system or other telephonicdestination. The forwarding agent 302 may also allow the recipient todesignate an alternate e-mail address 313, or any other mechanism 314 asa type of out-of-band communication.

A recipient may also use a delay notification to take other action. Forexample, delays may be the result of congestion in a mail server. Ane-mail system may be configured to allow a user to request an e-mailserver to re-prioritize delivery of e-mail messages so that an importantdelayed e-mail may be delivered more quickly. FIG. 8 shows oneillustrative embodiment of an electronic mail message system that may beused to detect and adapt to delayed electronic mail messages. As shown,the system includes at least one sender 106 and at least one recipient108. A pathway 104 that includes at least a recipient e-mail server 105a and a sender e-mail server 105 b constitutes a path 104 over which anelectronic mail message may be sent. The system also includes alow-latency channel 114 over which a notification 112 may be deliveredfrom the sender to the recipient and that corresponds to the electronicmail message 102, which allows delayed electronic mail messages 102 tobe identified by the recipient 108, as discussed herein. The recipient108, upon receiving an indication of a delayed electronic mail message,may request reprioritization 316 of the delayed electronic mail message102 relative to other electronic mail messages on the recipient e-mailserver 105 b, or in some cases, on the sender e-mail server 105 a.

FIG. 9 depicts one process through which a recipient may adapt to adelayed electronic mail message 102 by requesting reprioritization on aelectronic mail sever 105 a, 105 b. The process begins when a sender 106sends an electronic mail message 318 that includes information 103 to beconveyed to the recipient 108. A notification 112 that corresponds tothe electronic mail message is also sent 320 via a low-latency channel.A delayed electronic mail message is detected 322, such as by thepassage of a threshold amount time after receipt of a notificationwithout the corresponding electronic mail message. The recipient isnotified 324 of the delayed electronic mail message, and is thenprovided with an option of requesting reprioritization of the e-mail326. If chosen, the recipient's e-mail system may send a request to aserver, such as the recipient's e-mail server 105 a. The server 105 amay reprioritize delivery of e-mail messages in any suitable way. Forexample, if server 105 a has received e-mail 326 and stored it in aqueue, server 105 a may reorganize the queue 330 that contains thedelayed electronic mail message 102 to place e-mail 326 at or near thetop of the queue. The delayed electronic mail message may then be sent332 to the recipient 108. As another example, server 105 a may removethe e-mail from the queue and deliver it directly. As a furtheralternative, if the e-mail has not yet been received, server 105 a mayset a filter to identify the e-mail when received so that it isprocessed directly without being engraved.

Embodiments of the system may be configured to determine how therecipient may alter the priority of the electronic mail message 102. Byway of example, in some embodiments, a server 105 a, 105 b, uponreceiving a reprioritization request, may increase the priority of theelectronic mail message 102 only as it relates to other electronic mailmessages that are being delivered to the recipient 108. Alternately, theserver 105 a, 105 b may be configured to increase the priority of theelectronic mail 102 message 102 relative to all other messages thatexist on a queue of the server 105 a, 105 b. In such embodiments, thedelayed electronic mail message 102 may be removed from the queueentirely and delivered directly to the intended recipient 108.

Embodiments of the system may include features that regulate howelectronic mail messages 102 may be reorganized on the queue of a server105 a, 105 b. According to some embodiments, electronic mail messages102 of a select group of users may be reprioritized relative to anyother messages on a given queue, while the messages of other users mayonly be moved incrementally on a queue. In some approaches, recipientsmay be limited to the number of reprioritization requests that may bemade in a given interval of time, such that the recipient does notsimply identify every delayed e-mail for reprioritization. Still, otherstrategies for regulating how messages are reorganized on a queue arepossible, as aspects of the invention are not limited in this respect.

Notifications that allow a recipient to identify a delayed e-mail, suchas notification 112, may be implemented in any suitable way. FIG. 10 isa representation of a data structure that may be employed to holdinformation communicated in notification 112 according to someembodiments. As shown, the notification 112 includes a data field toidentify the corresponding e-mail 336 and a data field to identify asender 106 of the e-mail 338. Various embodiments of notifications 112may include any number of the additional fields represented in FIG. 10.One of such fields may represent the importance 340 or priority level ofan e-mail, which may prove useful in alerting the recipient 108 as towhether to take action if the corresponding electronic mail messageexperiences a delay. Notifications may include a data field thatprovides information relevant to the sender's availability 342, such aswhether or how long the sender will be present at a place from which thenotification was sent. For example, a value in field 342 may indicatethat the sender is in the sender's office. Data fields may also be usedto identify the availability of the sender on an alternate mechanism346, such as a voice mail system, a peer-to-peer system, or variouscomputers that the sender may be known to use. Fields may beincorporated into the notification that represent a time at which anelectronic mail message 102 was sent 348. Additionally or alternatively,a field that includes all or a portion of the subject of an electronicmail message 350 may be incorporated into a notification 112.

Embodiments of the notifications may be configured according to a fixedformat. In this respect, the size of notifications may be kept small topromote rapid delivery on a low-latency channel. According to someembodiments, the notifications are limited to fewer than 500 bytes,fewer than 250 bytes, fewer than 100 bytes, fewer than 50 bytes, or evensmaller amounts, as aspects of the invention are not limited in respect.

Having thus described several aspects of at least one embodiment of thisinvention, it is to be appreciated that various alterations,modifications, and improvements will readily occur to those skilled inthe art.

For example, in the embodiments described above, an e-mail was sent froma single sender to a single recipient. The number of people, entities ordevices acting as senders or receivers is not critical to the invention.For example, an e-mail message may be sent to multiple recipients anddelivery of such a message may be delayed to any or all of suchrecipients. As another example, forwarding agent 302 may be located onan e-mail server, such as server 105 a or 105 b.

Such alterations, modifications, and improvements are intended to bepart of this disclosure, and are intended to be within the spirit andscope of the invention. Accordingly, the foregoing description anddrawings are by way of example only.

The above-described embodiments of the present invention can beimplemented in any of numerous ways. For example, the embodiments may beimplemented using hardware, software or a combination thereof. Whenimplemented in software, the software code can be executed on anysuitable processor or collection of processors, whether provided in asingle computer or distributed among multiple computers.

Further, it should be appreciated that a computer may be embodied in anyof a number of forms, such as a rack-mounted computer, a desktopcomputer, a laptop computer, or a tablet computer. Additionally, acomputer may be embedded in a device not generally regarded as acomputer but with suitable processing capabilities, including a PersonalDigital Assistant (PDA), a smart phone or any other suitable portable orfixed electronic device.

Also, a computer may have one or more input and output devices. Thesedevices can be used, among other things, to present a user interface.Examples of output devices that can be used to provide a user interfaceinclude printers or display screens for visual presentation of outputand speakers or other sound generating devices for audible presentationof output. Examples of input devices that can be used for a userinterface include keyboards, and pointing devices, such as mice, touchpads, and digitizing tablets. As another example, a computer may receiveinput information through speech recognition or in other audible format.

Such computers may be interconnected by one or more networks in anysuitable form, including as a local area network or a wide area network,such as an enterprise network or the Internet. Such networks may bebased on any suitable technology and may operate according to anysuitable protocol and may include wireless networks, wired networks orfiber optic networks.

Also, the various methods or processes outlined herein may be coded assoftware that is executable on one or more processors that employ anyone of a variety of operating systems or platforms. Additionally, suchsoftware may be written using any of a number of suitable programminglanguages and/or conventional programming or scripting tools, and alsomay be compiled as executable machine language code or intermediate codethat is executed on a framework or virtual machine.

In this respect, the invention may be embodied as a computer readablemedium (or multiple computer readable media) (e.g., a computer memory,one or more floppy discs, compact discs, optical discs, magnetic tapes,flash memories, circuit configurations in Field Programmable Gate Arraysor other semiconductor devices, etc.) encoded with one or more programsthat, when executed on one or more computers or other processors,perform methods that implement the various embodiments of the inventiondiscussed above. The computer readable medium or media can betransportable, such that the program or programs stored thereon can beloaded onto one or more different computers or other processors toimplement various aspects of the present invention as discussed above.

The terms “program” or “software” are used herein in a generic sense torefer to any type of computer code or set of computer-executableinstructions that can be employed to program a computer or otherprocessor to implement various aspects of the present invention asdiscussed above. Additionally, it should be appreciated that accordingto one aspect of this embodiment, one or more computer programs thatwhen executed perform methods of the present invention need not resideon a single computer or processor, but may be distributed in a modularfashion amongst a number of different computers or processors toimplement various aspects of the present invention.

Computer-executable instructions may be in many forms, such as programmodules, executed by one or more computers or other devices. Generally,program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, datastructures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particularabstract data types. Typically the functionality of the program modulesmay be combined or distributed as desired in various embodiments.

Also, data structures may be stored in computer-readable media in anysuitable form. For simplicity of illustration, data structures may beshown to have fields that are related through location in the datastructure. Such relationships may likewise be achieved by assigningstorage for the fields with locations in a computer-readable medium thatconveys relationship between the fields. However, any suitable mechanismmay be used to establish a relationship between information in fields ofa data structure, including through the use of pointers, tags or othermechanisms that establish relationship between data elements.

Various aspects of the present invention may be used alone, incombination, or in a variety of arrangements not specifically discussedin the embodiments described in the foregoing and is therefore notlimited in its application to the details and arrangement of componentsset forth in the foregoing description or illustrated in the drawings.For example, aspects described in one embodiment may be combined in anymanner with aspects described in other embodiments.

Also, the invention may be embodied as a method, of which an example hasbeen provided. The acts performed as part of the method may be orderedin any suitable way. Accordingly, embodiments may be constructed inwhich acts are performed in an order different than illustrated, whichmay include performing some acts simultaneously, even though shown assequential acts in illustrative embodiments.

Use of ordinal terms such as “first,” “second,” “third,” etc., in theclaims to modify a claim element does not by itself connote anypriority, precedence, or order of one claim element over another or thetemporal order in which acts of a method are performed, but are usedmerely as labels to distinguish one claim element having a certain namefrom another element having a same name (but for use of the ordinalterm) to distinguish the claim elements.

Also, the phraseology and terminology used herein is for the purpose ofdescription and should not be regarded as limiting. The use of“including,” “comprising,” or “having,” “containing,” “involving,” andvariations thereof herein, is meant to encompass the items listedthereafter and equivalents thereof as well as additional items.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving, by a recipientdevice at a recipient email address, a notification that an electronicmail message has been sent from a sending device to the recipientdevice, the notification being separate from the electronic mail messageand received by the recipient device before the recipient devicereceives the electronic mail message; after the notification is receivedby the recipient device and before the electronic mail message isreceived by the recipient device: providing an indication to a user ofthe recipient device that the electronic mail message has been sent fromthe sending device and not yet received by the recipient device, theindication being based at least in part on the notification andindicating that the electronic mail message is delayed, and configuring,based on input from the user of the recipient device, a forwarding agentof an email client of the recipient device to forward information of theelectronic mail message to the user of the recipient device when theelectronic mail message is received at the recipient device, theforwarding agent being configured to forward the information of theelectronic mail message to: a cellular telephone other than therecipient device, or a location that is remote from the recipient deviceat an alternative email address that is different than the recipientemail address; receiving the electronic mail message at the email clientof the recipient device after configuring the forwarding agent; andafter receiving the electronic mail message at the email client of therecipient device, forwarding the information of the electronic mailmessage via the forwarding agent of the email client from the recipientdevice to the cellular telephone or to the location that is remote fromthe recipient device at the alternative email address.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: forwarding, by the forwarding agent, theinformation of the electronic mail message to the user of the recipientdevice via a voice mail system.
 3. The method of claim 2, furthercomprising converting the information of the electronic mail message tospeech and transferring the speech to the voice mail system.
 4. Themethod of claim 1, wherein configuring the forwarding agent comprisesselecting the notification from a queue of notifications awaitingcorresponding other electronic mail messages.
 5. The method of claim 1,further comprising: identifying that the electronic mail message isdelayed by comparing a current time to a time when the notificationcorresponding to the electronic mail message arrived at the emailclient.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: forwarding, by theforwarding agent, the information of the electronic mail message to theuser of the recipient device via an instant messaging service.
 7. One ormore computer-readable memory devices or storage devices comprisingcomputer-executable instructions which, when executed by one or moreprocessors, cause the one or more processors to perform acts comprising:receiving, by a recipient device at a recipient email address, anotification that an electronic mail message has been sent from asending device to the recipient device, the notification being separatefrom the electronic mail message and received by the recipient devicebefore the recipient device receives the electronic mail message; afterthe notification is received by the recipient device and before theelectronic mail message is received by the recipient device: providingan indication to a user of the recipient device that the electronic mailmessage has been sent from the sending device and not yet received bythe recipient device, the indication being based at least in part on thenotification and indicating that the electronic mail message is delayed,and configuring, based on input from the user of the recipient device, aforwarding agent of an email client of the recipient device to forwardinformation of the electronic mail message to the user of the recipientdevice when the electronic mail message is received at the recipientdevice, the forwarding agent being configured to forward the informationof the electronic mail message to: a cellular telephone other than therecipient device, or a location that is remote from the recipient deviceat an alternative email address that is different than the recipientemail address; receiving the electronic mail message at the email clientof the recipient device after configuring the forwarding agent; andafter receiving the electronic mail message at the email client of therecipient device, forwarding the information of the electronic mailmessage via the forwarding agent of the email client from the recipientdevice to the cellular telephone or to the location that is remote fromthe recipient device at the alternative email address.
 8. The one ormore computer-readable memory devices or storage devices of claim 7, theacts further comprising: forwarding, by the forwarding agent, theinformation of the electronic mail message to the user of the recipientdevice via a voice mail system.
 9. The one or more computer-readablememory devices or storage devices of claim 8, the acts furthercomprising: converting the information of the electronic mail message tospeech and transferring the speech to the voice mail system.
 10. The oneor more computer-readable memory devices or storage devices of claim 7,wherein configuring the forwarding agent comprises selecting thenotification from a queue of notifications awaiting corresponding otherelectronic mail messages.
 11. The one or more computer-readable memorydevices or storage devices of claim 7, the acts further comprising:identifying that the electronic mail message is delayed by comparing acurrent time to a time when the notification corresponding to theelectronic mail message arrived at the email client.
 12. The one or morecomputer-readable memory devices or storage devices of claim 7, the actsfurther comprising: forwarding, by the forwarding agent, the informationof the electronic mail message to the user of the recipient device viaan instant messaging service.
 13. A recipient device comprising:executable instructions configured to: receive, by the recipient deviceat a recipient email address, a notification that an electronic mailmessage has been sent from a sending device to the recipient device, thenotification being separate from the electronic mail message andreceived by the recipient device before the recipient device receivesthe electronic mail message; after the notification is received by therecipient device and before the electronic mail message is received bythe recipient device: provide an indication to a user of the recipientdevice that the electronic mail message has been sent from the sendingdevice and not yet received by the recipient device, the indicationbeing based at least in part on the notification and indicating that theelectronic mail message is delayed, and configure, based on input fromthe user of the recipient device, a forwarding agent of an email clientof the recipient device to forward information of the electronic mailmessage to the user of the recipient device when the electronic mailmessage is received at the recipient device, the forwarding agent beingconfigured to forward the information of the electronic mail message to:a cellular telephone other than the recipient device, or a location thatis remote from the recipient device at an alternative email address thatis different than the recipient email address; receive the electronicmail message at the email client of the recipient device afterconfiguring the forwarding agent; and after the electronic mail messageis received at the email client of the recipient device, forward theinformation of the electronic mail message via the forwarding agent ofthe email client from the recipient device to the cellular telephone orto the location that is remote from the recipient device at thealternative email address, and at least one hardware processorconfigured to execute the instructions.
 14. The recipient deviceaccording to claim 13, wherein the instructions are further configuredto: forward, by the forwarding agent, the information of the electronicmail message to the user of the recipient device via a voice mailsystem.
 15. The recipient device according to claim 14, wherein theinstructions are further configured to: convert the information of theelectronic mail message to speech and transfer the speech to the voicemail system.
 16. The recipient device according to claim 13, wherein theinstructions are further configured to: configure the forwarding agentresponsive to a selection of the notification from a queue ofnotifications awaiting corresponding other electronic mail messages. 17.The recipient device according to claim 13, wherein the instructions arefurther configured to: compare a current time to a time when thenotification corresponding to the electronic mail message arrived at theemail client to identify that the electronic mail message is delayed.18. The recipient device according to claim 13, wherein the instructionsare further configured to: forward, by the forwarding agent, theinformation of the electronic mail message to the user of the recipientdevice via an instant messaging service.
 19. A system comprising therecipient device of claim 13 and a notification server configured tosend the notification to the recipient device.
 20. The system accordingto claim 19, further comprising a sender email server configured to sendthe electronic mail message to the recipient device.